New York teachers turn on Common Core

One of the biggest groups of educators in the country says the program's not working. | AP Photo

In Obama’s first years in office, the administration gave states financial and policy incentives to adopt the standards; 45 states and the District of Columbia quickly did so, with little public debate. But as the standards have been introduced into classrooms — in some cases accompanied by notable shifts in math instruction and a much more heavy emphasis on non-fiction texts in English classes — parents have raised questions and conservative advocacy groups have jumped on board with warnings of federal overreach and a loss of local control.

Several states, including Alaska, Pennsylvania, Florida and Georgia, have backed away from prior commitments to use new Common Core exams funded by the federal government to assess their students’ progress and measure their achievement against kids in other states. Other states are going further still and considering revoking the standards altogether.

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“We don’t ever want to educate South Carolina children like they educate California children,” South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley recently told a gathering of Republican women. “We want to educate South Carolina children on South Carolina standards, not anyone else’s standards.” She urged the legislature to overturn the Common Core standards, promising she would sign such a bill the moment it came to her desk.

Republican Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin have also signaled their distaste for centralized standards. “Told attendees at state education convention that academic standards should be set by people in WI, not DC,” Walker tweeted on Friday.

The anxiety has touched Democratic leaders, too. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently said he has concerns about the way the standards have been implemented in his state. And at a hearing in Albany last week, Commissioner King fended off a barrage of tough questions and angry complaints about Common Core from legislators in both parties. “Hit the delay button!” state Sen. George Latimer, a Democrat, demanded, banging on the table for emphasis.

Opponents of Common Core said they see the NYSUT vote as a turning point, indicating that the protest movement has expanded beyond parents and political activists.

“Were this a small union no one would take notice,” said Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a think tank that has been active in opposing the Common Core. “But the size and breadth of NYSUT tells even the casual observer that the wheels are coming off Common Core in NY.” The vote, he said, “clearly gives lie to view that teachers support the whole Common Core apparatus. The fact that NYSUT cuts across over a thousand local unions speaks to how widespread opposition has become.”

Carol Burris, an award-winning principal in New York who has been outspoken in opposition to the new standards, called the vote “both courageous and significant.”

But Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, which helped develop the standards, called the vote “unfortunate.” He noted that the standards “were developed with substantial involvement from classroom teachers, and teachers overwhelmingly support these standards.”

As evidence of widespread teacher support, the National Education Association points to a poll taken last fall showing that three quarters of its members back the standards. But that support isn’t rock solid. The poll found that 26 percent of NEA members support the Common Core wholeheartedly, another 50 percent back them tentatively, with reservations, and 13 percent said they didn’t know enough to form an opinion.

The NEA has heavily promoted the standards as crucial to making American children more competitive with their international peers. It recently launched a website with more than 3,000 sample Common Core lessons, including videos of master teachers presenting the material.

The American Federation of Teachers has been a bit more nuanced; it supports the standards, but President Randi Weingarten has called for a moratorium on high-stakes testing while the Common Core exams are phased in.

The standards have been promoted as well by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable, as well as by prominent education reformers from both parties, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee, the former chief of Washington, D.C., schools.

Supporters of the Common Core have expressed frustration at the mounting opposition, saying the standards have become a convenient scapegoat for anything anyone doesn’t like about education today.

“We’re in an environment where anything anyone thinks is wrong, people think [that’s] part of Common Core,” said Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, one of the nonprofits that helped write the Common Core. In an interview last fall, Cohen said he was counting on teachers to be “credible advocates” for Common Core in every state. Teachers, he said, would be able to parry the conspiracy theories and “get the argument grounded again.”